I’d recommend the public sector to anyone. It offers so many opportunities, and your career can be as varied as you want. I worked in management accounts for Northern Constabulary (now Police Scotland) while I took my ACCA qualification. I then went to Audit Scotland on secondment and applied for a permanent position because I could see there was great potential for promotion and involvement across different departments – it felt like a good career move.
I am always meeting new people. Audit Scotland staff rotate every five years and are allocated to new teams. It gives us a chance to meet new clients and is almost like starting a new job but without having to go through moving organisations.
Invest in your career and set goals that challenge you to progress
Currently our challenges include recovering audit delivery timeliness, following interruptions due to the pandemic. We have developed a multiyear programme to fully recover our delivery by autumn 2027. We’re also undertaking an audit modernisation programme. This will look at the tools, training and mechanisms that we use to ensure quality and compliance so that audit teams will have the right skills to face the future.
Becoming an ACCA member was a huge achievement for me. I qualified by studying remotely while working full-time, being a single parent to a toddler and going through a divorce. To accountants starting out, I’d say invest in your career and set goals that challenge you to progress. Then find a mentor who can help you in achieving those goals. If you feel the area you are working in is not for you, that’s okay. It is better to have tried something and then be able to discount it than always wonder if that route was for you.
As long as I have tried my best in any given situation, I can relax and let it go
My favourite quote is: what is for you won’t go past you. Sometimes the world has other things in store for us. As long as I have tried my best in any given situation, I can relax and let it go, even where I may have wanted a different outcome.
Spare time is hard to find with three children. But I do love baking and going for walks in the hills or to the beach.
